The ability to monitor pressure in a living organism such as an animal or a human has numerous applications ranging from blood pressure monitoring to monitoring medical conditions such as aneurisms and the like. While monitoring blood pressure through the skin, for example, is known, the accuracy of such devices may be questionable. Targeted pressure monitoring of a medical condition such as an aneurism requires a precise and reliable device. Such a device should be non-invasive to the vessel itself to prevent problems associated with penetration of the blood vessel.
While monitoring of blood pressure or other pressure within a body is often done on a transitory basis, there are situations that require comprehensive continuous monitoring. For example, an aneurism may require continuous monitoring to ensure that it does not continue to grow in size and rupture. The ability to continuously monitor an aneurism, and provide the patient or a medical practitioner with real-time information related to their condition is something that has heretofore been unknown. Such continuous real-time monitoring allows immediate action to be taken in the event that the patient becomes at risk. Currently, aneurism monitoring involves regular surveillance imaging that requires a visit to a medical practitioner for each check of the condition of the aneurism. There is no real-time monitoring system that could provide pressure readouts on an instrument that could, for example, be worn on a patient's wrist, or provide the data to a remote monitoring device by way of a computer network, a wireless network, or the like.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide an implantable pressure monitor that is non-invasive to the vessel or body part to which pressure is being monitored. It is another object of the present invention to provide an implantable pressure monitor that can provide data to a remote device such as a hospital monitor, smart phone, or other such electronic device. It is another object of the present invention to provide an implantable pressure monitor that provides real time status on medical conditions such as aneurisms. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an implantable pressure monitor that provides real time blood pressure data. It is a further object of the present invention to provide an above skin blood pressure monitor. These and other objects of the present invention are not to be considered comprehensive or exhaustive, but rather, exemplary of objects that may be ascertained after reading this specification and claims in view of the accompanying drawings.